Mesoscale modeling and biocompatibility of nano-hydroxyapatite reinforced ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene composite

This work aims to implement an efficient and accurate computational model to predict elastoplastic properties of UHMWPE/nano-HA bio-composite. Mean-field (MF) homogenization and finite element (FE) techniques are implemented to predict the elastoplastic behavior of composite. The predicted results obtained by MF and FE were compared and validated experimentally by fabricating the specimen using microwave-assisted compression molding. The axial and transverse moduli were increased by 49% at a 20% weight fraction of nano-HA. The hardening modulus was also found to be increased by 67%. Further, Degree of crystallinity (Xc) of fabricated composite specimens was determined using differential scanning calorimetry analysis. It was found that the Xc increased 34% with the addition of 20% weight fraction of nano-HA. In vitro, direct contact cytotoxicity and antibacterial test were performed to determine cell adhesion and bacterial behavior of the composite.

Application of short-term methods to estimate the environmental stress cracking resistance of recycled HDPE

Environmental stress cracking is a serious problem for polyethylene because it can cause failure without any visible warning due to the slow crack growth accelerated by aggressive agents. Tie molecules and entanglements are the main macromolecular characteristic increasing environmental stress cracking resistance, thus in this work mechanical and thermal properties governed by those macromolecular characteristics are determined by performing simple tests executable in the industrial laboratories for quality control on recycled high-density polyethylene. The mutual relation between the determined properties confirms their dependence on the investigated macromolecular characteristics and allows to predict in a comparative way the expected environmental stress cracking. The mechanical properties related to the environmental stress cracking resistance are the strain hardening modulus and the natural draw ratio. The strain hardening modulus is an intrinsic property that measure the disentanglement capability of the inter-lamellar links and the natural draw ratio is a highly sensitive parameter to the macromolecular network strength via the intercrystalline tie molecules. Since the measurement of these properties according to the standard ISO 18,488 requires a temperature chamber not often available in the industrial laboratories, the tensile test was performed also at room temperature and displacement rate 0.5 mm/min; a proportionality between the data obtained at different test condition emerged. The thermal property related to the environmental stress cracking resistance is the stepwise isothermal segregation ratio that state the chain fraction that generates a high rate of tie molecules responsible of environmental stress cracking resistance.

Numerical and Theoretical Analysis of the Inertia Effects and Interfacial Friction in SHPB Test Systems

The dynamic properties of materials should be analyzed for the material selection and safety design of robots used in the army and other protective structural applications. Split Hopkinson pressure bars (SHPB) is a widely used system for measuring the dynamic behavior of materials between 102 and 104 s−1 strain rates. In order to obtain accurate dynamic parameters of materials, the influences of friction and inertia should be considered in the SHPB tests. In this study, the effects of the friction conditions, specimen shape, and specimen configuration on the SHPB results are numerically investigated for rate-independent material, rate-dependent elastic-plastic material, and rate-dependent visco-elastic material. High-strength steel DP500 and polymethylmethacrylate are the representative materials for the latter two materials. The rate-independent material used the same elastic modulus and hardening modulus as the rate-dependent visco-elastic material but without strain rate effects for comparison. The impact velocities were 3 and 10 m/s. The results show that friction and inertia can produce a significant increase in the flow stress, and their effects are affected by impact velocities. Rate-dependent visco-elasticity material specimen is the most sensitive material to friction and inertia effects among these three materials (rate-independent material, rate-dependent elastic-plastic material, and rate-dependent visco-elastic material). A theoretical analysis based on the conservation of energy is conducted to quantitatively analyze the relationship between the stress measured in the specimen and friction as well as inertia effects. Furthermore, the methods to reduce the influence of friction and inertia effects on the experimental results are further analyzed.

Fatigue Crack Initiation of Metals Fabricated by Additive Manufacturing—A Crystal Plasticity Energy-Based Approach to IN718 Life Prediction

There has been a long-standing need in the marketplace for the economic production of small lots of components that have complex geometry. A potential solution is additive manufacturing (AM). AM is a manufacturing process that adds material from the bottom up. It has the distinct advantages of low preparation costs and a high geometric creation capability. However, the wide range of industrial processing conditions results in large variations in the fatigue lives of metal components fabricated using AM. One of the main reasons for this variation of fatigue lives is differences in microstructure. Our methodology incorporated a crystal plasticity finite element model (CPFEM) that was able to simulate a stress–strain response based on a set of randomly generated representative volume elements. The main advantage of this approach was that the model determined the elastic constants (C11, C12, and C44), the critical resolved shear stress (g0), and the strain hardening modulus (h0) as a function of microstructure. These coefficients were determined based on the stress–strain relationships derived from the tensile test results. By incorporating the effect of microstructure on the elastic constants (C), the shear stress amplitude (Δτ2) can be computed more accurately. In addition, by considering the effect of microstructure on the critical resolved shear stress (g0) and the strain hardening modulus (h0), the localized dislocation slip and plastic slip per cycle (Δγp2) can be precisely calculated by CPFEM. This study represents a major advance in fatigue research by modeling the crack initiation life of materials fabricated by AM with different microstructures. It is also a tool for designing laser AM processes that can fabricate components that meet the fatigue requirements of specific applications.

Elastic-plastic model for the mechanical properties of paperboard as a function of moisture

To verify a linear relation between normalized mechanical property and moisture ratio, in-plane tensile tests were performed on four types of paperboard from different manufacturers. Tensile properties were normalized with respect to the property at standard climate (50 % RH, 23 °C). Short-span Compression Tests were also performed to investigate if the relation was linear also for in-plane compression. The tests were performed at different relative humidity (20, 50, 70 and 90 % RH) but with constant temperature (23 °C) in MD and CD, respectively. The linear relation was confirmed for the normalized mechanical properties investigated. In fact, when also the moisture ratio was normalized with the standard climate, all paperboards coincided along the same line. Therefore, each mechanical property could be expressed as a linear function of moisture ratio and two parameters. Moreover, an in-plane bilinear elastic-plastic material model was suggested, based on four parameters: strength, stiffness, yield strength and hardening modulus, where all parameters could be expressed as linear functions of moisture ratio. The model could predict the elastic-plastic behavior for any moisture content from the two parameters in the linear relations and the mechanical properties at standard climate.

Strain Rate Dependence of Hardness for PE and SME TiNi Alloys

In this paper, the strain rate dependence of hardening behavior of polycrystalline pseudoelastic (PE) and shape memory effect (SME) TiNi alloy under impact loading was investigated by experiments. Measurements of stress–strain curves, hardening modulus, hysteresis loop area, and temperature variation are synchronized using in situ infrared detector system at the strain rate range from 300/s to 2000/s. It is shown that with the strain rate increasing, for PE specimens, strain rate hardening is observed, while SME specimens perform a strong nonlinear strain hardening. The results of synchronous temperature measurement show that in stress-temperature space, for PE samples, the dynamic transformation path is strain rate independent, but for the SME samples, the opposite is true. Thermal-mechanical coupling does not seem to explain this difference, and hardening from microstructure variation should be considered for such difference.

A mechanistic analysis of delamination of elastic coatings from the surface of plastically deformed stents

Several medical papers have reported delamination of the coating from the stent-substrate following intravascular deployment leading to adverse outcomes for patients. However, the mechanisms of delamination of such polymer coatings from the surface of a stent due to large deformations during device deployment has not been studied. In this paper, a novel and in-depth investigation of the mechanisms and parameters that govern stent-coating delamination is performed, using a cohesive zone formulation to simulation the evolution of traction at the stent-coating interface. The study firstly analyses the behaviour of elastic coatings on idealised elastic stent substrates. Simulations reveal that the mode mixity of delamination is strongly dependent on the level of stent deployment at initiation. In general, peak normal tractions exceed peak shear tractions at low levels of stent deployment whereas the reverse trend is computed at high levels of stent deployment. Interface tractions increase with both increasing stent thickness and coating thickness suggesting that thinner stents and thinner coatings should be utilised for the delivery of antiproliferative drugs in order to reduce the risk of coating delamination. Next, the influence of stent plasticity on interface tractions and coating delamination is investigated. Even at low levels of deployment, plastic yielding occurs in the stent hinge region and the patterns of normal and shear tractions are found to be significantly more complex than those computed for elastic stents, with both tensile and compressive regions of normal traction occurring in the stent arch. At a high level of stent deployment shear tractions at the stent-coating interface are computed to increase with decreasing strain hardening modulus. The findings of this paper provide a new insight into the stress-state at the stent-coating interface as a function of the stent design parameters and large deformation elasticity and plasticity during deployment, allowing for a more reliable assessment of the limits relating to safe implantation of coated stents.

Residual Stresses of Round Steel Rod at Elastoplastic Twisting

In the elastoplastic twisting of a rod under the action of an external torque, the cross-section of the rod is divided into two zones: the inner elastic zone and the outer plastic zone. After removing the external loads, we observe the residual deformations and the residual stresses inside the rod that significantly affect on the subsequent mechanical processes at manufacturing the products from the round rod. Under too much twisting, the longitudinal surface fibers of the rod begin to tear, the outer surface of the rod ceases to be cylindrical, and the rod’s cross-section ceases to be flat (the Bernoulli’s hypothesis about the flat sections is violated). Next a rupture of the rod is followed. For the plastic materials, the destruction is caused by the pure shear, and the rupture surface is perpendicular to the axis of the rod. For the brittle materials, the destruction occurs, due to the rupture along the screw surface inclined to the axis of the round rod at the angle of 45. In this paper, the residual stresses of the round rod at twisting are obtained for an elastoplastic medium with linear hardening in depending on the rod’s diameter, the shear modulus, the hardening modulus in shear and the yield strength in shear of the rod’s material.